英语美文朗读 第330期 The Faculty of Delight

Among the mind's powers is one that comes of itself to many children and artists. It need not be lost, to the end of his days, by any one who has ever had it. This is the power of taking delight in a thing, or rather in anything, everything, not as a means to some other end, but just because it is what it is, as the lover dotes on whatever may be the traits of the beloved object.

 

在心智的各种能力中，有一种能力对于许多儿童和艺术家来说是与生倶来的，而且一旦获得它，就终身不会失去。这种能力就是对一件事物、甚至对每件事物都感到喜悦的能力。之所以感到喜悦，并不是因为那件事物是达到其他目的的手段，只是因为这件事情本身，正如一个情人觉得他所喜爱的对象是十全十美一样。

 

A child in the full health of his mind wifi put his hand flat on the summer turf, feel it, and give a little shiver of private glee at the elastic firmness of the globe. He is not thinking how well it will do for some game or to feed sheep upon. That would be the way of the wooer whose mind runs on his mistress's money. The child's is sheer affection, the true ecstatic sense of the thing's inherent characteristics.

一个心智健康的儿童也许会把他的手放在夏天的草地上，抚摸着它，他觉得坚实的大地也有点弹性，因而打心眼里感到欣喜。他并不会考虑这草地对于人们玩游戏或用来放羊会有多大好处。如果这样的话，那就是一心贪图钱财的追求者的恶劣行径了。但这孩子内心的喜悦却是至真至纯的，是对这件事物的内在特性感到真正的心醉神迷。

 

No matter what the things may be, no matter what they are good or no good for, there they are, each with a thrilling unique look and feel of its own, like a face; the iron astringently coop under its paint, the painted wood familiarly warmer, the clod crumbling enchantingly down in the hands, with its little dry smell of the sun and of hot nettles ; each common thing a personality marked by delicious differences.

不管这些事物是什么，也不管它们对什么有用或者没用，它们自然地存在着，有着自己动人的外观与感觉，就像一张面孔那样；油漆下面冰凉的钢铁，温暖可亲的彩色木料，拿在手中一揉就碎的令人着迷的土块，微微含着日晒与荨麻的干燥气味；各种普通的事物都有着可爱的差别，因而都突显了其独特的性格。

 

The joy of an Adam new to the garden and just looking round is brought by the normal child to the things that he does as well as those that he sees. To be suffered to do some plain work with the real spade used by mankind can give him a mystical exaltation : to come home with his legs, as the French say, reentering his body from the fatigue of helping the gardener to weed beds sends him to sleep in the glow of a beatitude that is an end in itself…

初到伊甸园的亚当左右张望，充满喜悦，这正是一个正常的儿童在做什么或看什么时所感到的欣喜之情。如果让他拿起人们使用的真正的铲子去做点普通的劳动，那他肯定会感到一种神秘的喜悦。当他经过一番辛劳，帮助园丁把花园里的杂草除掉，两只脚像缩进身体里似的走了回来（像法国人说的那样），他会在一片纯粹的喜悦之光的照耀下安然睡去……